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Comment by varjag | Hacker News Reader

- Drop official relations to the regime in any capacity. Diplomatic, economic, sports. Exclude it from membership in any organization where Russia has no veto right.

- Recognize Tsikhanouskaya government as interim government in exile. Insist that this government is the official venue for any engagement (exports, imports, sport event participation).

- Ban all regime officials in all branches from entry.

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Tsikhanouskaya has no government and cannot be recognized as a legitimate president, only as opposition leader. There are only indications that she may have got popular vote, but until there are free and transparent elections it is only a rumor - not enough for recognition by democratic standards. In this role the only topic that can be discussed with her is the peaceful transition of power and organization of new elections - until they happen, there is no recognized government and no negotiation party.

Active non-recognition can be a good option here: since there is no recognized government, in all applicable cases (events, elections in international organizations etc) it shall be decided that Belarus abstained from vote or was absent. Membership and contractual payments from Belarus can be rejected and considered not happening, resulting in suspensions, sanctions and cancellations and so on and so on.

Tsikhanuskaya has a competent skeletal crew that can be built into a government, that's just a technicality. And yes it absolutely can get recognized; historically governments were recognized with less. If democratic process is your only yardstick for recognition of world governments, I have bad news about a lot of places that are none the less recognized.

It is a matter of political will, which is the only thing that is practically lacking.

This won’t be an acceptable solution for EU. The core value of our Union is the rule of law and we must stick to it, taking the legalistic approach even if constraints of it feel too strong. The rule of law is currently being undermined by Russia and its satellites, exploiting every misstep of Western governments to demonstrate the internal weakness of our democracy. Lowering the bar would mean accepting their game, where laws can be bent and serve only as a formal coverup of lawless actions of the rulers.

EU member states have little problem recognizing regimes like Sisi's, post-crackdowns Iran or indeed Lukashenka's own right until the last summer. Neither of these recently were outcomes of democratic processes with statements from the monitoring institutions acknowledging that. There's hardly a room to lower the bar anymore.

It is hard to see requiring an alternative candidate (whose persecution blew up the country) register a victory in increasingly totalitarian place as anything but deflection. Bailing out on technicality.

Actually this tactics was tried once with Guaido in Venezuela.

You move to tactics that can cripple a country even if the country doesn't need international trade.

The focus shifts to cyber warfare where you take out infrastructure.

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